| There is an increasing demand for travel tools on the Internet. Travel websites allow users to make reservations or obtain information, but few attempt to automatically suggest itineraries based on user preferences. The Byway Itinerary Planning (BIP) system returns an itinerary seconds after users submit their information. The BIP system accepts a user profile and returns an itinerary along one of America's Scenic Byways. This itinerary matches what the user specified he/she wanted to see and do, and it is within the user's time and location constraints. The search space for this task grows exponentially with the number of possible places to visit. This thesis discusses the knowledge representation and the search method used to solve this ambitious task in an amount of time that is feasible for a web application. |
